Take One Action Film Festival 2011

Event highlights from the political film fest

Radical, committed, and delivering a great, high-quality programme, this year the Take One Action Film Festival, celebrating, as patron Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it ‘the people and movies that are changing the world’, has an excellent programme of talks and debates running alongside it. It reaches a high point in early October with the young exiled Burmese activist and outspoken critic of the Burmese Government Zoya Phan, who will be popping up at both the CCA and Filmhouse for a discussion about her work with Burma Campaign UK, but there are plenty of other great events across both Edinburgh and Glasgow to get your teeth into in the meantime. We’ve covered the films in detail in our Film section, but often the debates accompanying the works can be just as interesting and informative in their own right.

Clare Short, the outspoken former New Labour minister who in 2003 resigned in protest at the UK involvement in the Iraq War, is coming to Edinburgh on Sat 24 Sep for a conversation event. Since her resignation, Short has reinvented herself as an anti-poverty campaigner, and is trustee for a number of charities on issues as diverse as gay rights, African governance and the defence and rebuilding of Palestinian homes. Participants are encouraged to get into dialogue with her on any of these issues, which should make for a very interesting night.

Another event which caught our attention is the panel discussion Reporting International Development, an especially timely look at how to report the involvements of charities and global corporations in world development. UK journalism is in a state of flux just now: panellists Billy Briggs, Paul Holleran and others debate how we can use it for the good.

A film festival with a political slant, founded on the belief that 'cinematic experiences can inspire lasting change' and offering a series of talks and programmes showing how films can be used to empower communities on an international stage.